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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27230596">Little, and Broken, but Still Good</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiazza3/pseuds/Tiazza3'>Tiazza3</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fallout 4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, and i love monsters!, dw I'm still working on my other john hancock and monster story my brain is just being difficult, i love john hancock, so here we go folks, you'll find out what Kila is soon!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 21:29:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,377</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27230596</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiazza3/pseuds/Tiazza3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>My current Fallout 4 Sole Survivor, Kila, and her travels with one John Hancock.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Kila panted, blood boiling, feeling the beast screaming inside her. She flexed her fingers, phantom claws twitching with want, and turned to face Hancock. He was whistling softly, rifling through the pockets of a dead raider. He got to his feet a moment later and smiled at her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What, not interested in looting these guys?” he asked her, nonexistent eyebrow arching questioningly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Too worked up,” she snarled. “Not enough fuckin’ raiders to kill, I’m still all hopped up on adrenaline.” </span>
  <em>
    <span>And the beast roaring inside her, </span>
  </em>
  <span>she didn’t add. Because he still didn’t know, after two months of traveling with her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She took a deep breath, closing her eyes and centering herself, shoving her impulses deep into her core. Not now. Not now. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hancock didn’t bother offering her his favored grape mentats; by now he knew she would refuse. Instead, he patted her bracingly on the shoulder and moved off to another cleared room, presumably to search through more pockets and drawers in search of anything useful.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kila stared at a raider’s severed arm, felt her stomach growl, and decided to wait outside until he was done.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Outside wasn’t great- </span>
  <em>
    <span>sky is wrong trees are dead everything smells strange- </span>
  </em>
  <span>but there was a cool breeze to blow on her face and sticks to throw for Dogmeat, and the scent of gore and fear was gone, quieting the beast. So it wasn’t too bad, really. Dogmeat happily fetched every stick she threw, barking excitedly as he tracked them. Occasionally he managed to catch one out of the air, and she clapped for him each time. Honestly, God bless Dogmeat. Hancock was great. But Dogmeat had been her constant companion for the last six months, ever since she had happened to wander by Red Rocket Truck Stop, struggling not to give up, lost in the memories of her dead son and husband. She’s pretty sure now that he had played the ‘poor sad lost puppy’ specifically to give her someone to focus on, to give her a purpose, but it was exactly what she needed. And now….now she wasn’t so alone anymore. She had Dogmeat, and Hancock, and she was friendly with many of the residents of Goodneighbor, and she dropped by Nick’s place at least once or twice a month to say hello and shoot the breeze. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then Hancock himself was stepping out the door, his scent rich with blood, and fear jolted through her like lightning as she remembered. He still didn’t know. He didn’t know, and if she ever slipped up and he found out… she didn’t know what would happen. He could leave. He could leave her, and reject her, and both Kila and the beast within her shuddered, afraid. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You alright?” he asked her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine,” she replied, pasting a smile onto her face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kila shifted restlessly that night, rolling over and over in her sleeping bag. Dogmeat had long ago left her side, shooting her a dirty look as he went to lay down farther away from her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eventually, sometime in the hour just before dawn, she got up, trying not to disturb Hancock as he slept several feet away. But she had never been very good at keeping quiet, and one black, bottomless eye cracked open to track her movements before she’d goten more than a few feet. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Whatcha doin’, sister?” he slurred, voice even lower and rougher than usual.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She hesitated. She wasn’t sure what she was doing, but she felt like she was going to crawl out of her skin if she sat still for another minute.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hancock noticed her hesitation and sat up, hand moving towards his gun. “Something wrong?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She knew what he really meant was ‘did you see something?’ or ‘did Dogmeat hear something?’ but her heart jumped in her throat and she flinched away, the beast whining fearfully. Hancock couldn’t, </span>
  <em>
    <span>wouldn’t</span>
  </em>
  <span>, hurt her, but the fear was still there, regardless. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His dark eyes widened, and he carefully put his shotgun to the side. “What’s wrong, Kila?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His tone was serious, worried, and suddenly Kila couldn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>take it </span>
  </em>
  <span>anymore. This man had risked his life for her, for Dogmeat, had sat with an arm around her when she woke sobbing from nightmares, was always steadfast and funny and unfailingly </span>
  <em>
    <span>there, </span>
  </em>
  <span>ever since she had stumbled into Goodneighbor and almost robbed him on accident. She didn’t understand why he wanted to be her friend, why he stuck with her, but she and the beast were in utter agreement: Hancock was her friend, and he deserved the truth. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She forced the words out of her mouth. They felt like broken glass. “Hancock. What…..what would you do, if someone had been keeping a secret from you. Because they were afraid of how you would react?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looked at her for a long moment. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If that ‘someone’ is you, sister, I can’t imagine any kind of secret that would make me stop wanting to travel with you. And even though I’m dying to know, you don’t have to tell me. I know you. You’re a good person, and nothin’ is gonna change that”. So saying, he laid back down, rolled over with his back to her. She stood there and listened to his breathing slowly fall back into the patterns of sleep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She….didn’t have to tell him. Not right now, at least. He had absolved her of the crushing guilt of keeping something from him in a few short sentences, and now she felt as if she was walking on air. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She would tell him. But when she was ready, and not because she felt she owed him the truth. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The crawling feeling had disappeared from her body, and suddenly she was bone-tired. She crawled back into her sleeping bag and fell instantly asleep. This time when Dogmeat cuddled up to her, she slept like a log.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm baaaack! so since this school term has basically ended imma try to upload more. And just more in general lol.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It was a lovely, pleasant day in the Commonwealth. Which meant that there were no radstorms, there was a slight crispness to the air, and the sky was a little more like it was before the bombs dropped. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dogmeat trotted ahead of her, his own small pack bulging with stimpaks, dog food, and other odds and ends that hadn’t fit in Kila’s own bag. Occasionally he would look back at her, tongue lolling out to the side in a canine smile. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Their trip to Diamond City had been a good one. They had gotten enough food to last awhile, even some canned dog food for Dogmeat that he loved, and she had managed to bargain a few extra mentats off Solomon for Hancock. She couldn’t find as many rounds for his shotgun as she would like, but she could give him a few molotovs and grenades to compensate. Of course, Hancock himself hadn’t come along, not wanting to set foot in the city. He had stayed behind, camping out a ways away from the edge of the ruined city. She hadn’t wanted to leave him alone, but he had insisted she go and take Dogmeat with her, he would be fine. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>As Kila approached their makeshift camp, the wind shifted, and the smell of blood and gunpowder hit her strongly. Dogmeat yelped worriedly, springing forward, Kila hot on his heels. Her heart pounded with terror, not with hunger. Not this time. The blood she and Dogmeat had smelled was thick with radiation, different from the blood of the average raider or gunner. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ghoul blood. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hancock shifted restlessly on the cold concrete floor. His ass hurt from sitting so long, and he cursed himself for a fool. Diamond City was a shithole, but at least no one was likely to kidnap him for ransom. Because that was what they were doing. He had overheard them speaking with one another, bragging about how they were going to get five thousand caps off of Kila. Evidently someone had noticed how she never seemed to want for money, how tight she was with the Minutemen, how she always had enough for another round at the bar. If they had had half a brain to go around, they’d realize that she had gotten her wealth from plumbing the most dangerous depths of the Commonwealth, and that she could probably bring them down with both hands tied behind her back. But, obviously they didn’t. Had probably been hitting the jet way too hard for way too long. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>However, they still had the smarts to actually nab him, and pretty smoothly too. Fuckers had all been using stealth boys, had waited until Kila and Dogmeat had left and the wind was blowing just a little too hard for him to hear them coming. He’d got a few of them good, biting and clawing like a feral, but in the end they had trussed him up like a brahmin and drug him back to the shitty hole in the ground that they were calling a hideout. He was bound at the wrists and ankles, stripped down to his underwear, and gagged. Fucking humiliating. And his jaw hurt, one of the assholes had a mean right hook. Almost knocked a tooth loose. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In short, he felt like shit. But he felt even more like shit because he was sure Kila was going to pay up, at least until she could get him back (he had doubts that the raiders were going to honor their word), and hell, he could picture the terror in her eyes when she came back to camp and found him gone, signs of a struggle evident. She had been so goddam nervous, in the beginning, scared that he would up and leave at any tiny disagreement or screwup. She had tried to hide it, of course, brushing him off if he so much as obliquely mentioned feelings or being lonely or afraid, but eventually she had broken down and really talked to him. It had been when she had woken up screaming and sobbing incoherently from a nightmare, and she had clung to him so fiercely he could feel his ribs creaking. He had just held her, whispering comforting nonsense into her ear until she calmed down long enough to choke out what she had been dreaming about, what she was so afraid of. After that, when she needed to talk something out, vent, or just scream furiously while he listened, she would come and sit by his side, completely silent until he asked what was wrong. And after all that, the idea that he had abandoned her, even unwillingly, drove a sharp spike of pain into his withered heart. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was a loud sound from somewhere far above. It sounded like…..tearing metal? There were gunshots too, loud and sharp in the previous quiet. They quickly ceased, and Hancock winced, pitying the poor fool who had wandered into a raider nest. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was silence for another moment, and then a strange noise echoed down from above. Hancock couldn’t even begin to imagine what was making this haunting, spine-tingling sound. It almost sounded like </span>
  <em>
    <span>laughter. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dogmeat whimpered. White-hair two-leg was so </span>
  <em>
    <span>angry, </span>
  </em>
  <span>angry and scared. And she had turned into the strange not-two-leg thing, her entire body stretching and popping and creaking until she stood taller than a green two-leg on her hind legs. She wailed furiously, almost-dog pink nose sniffing at the scent of blood on the ground, trying to track it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dogmeat barked at her softly, and quailed when he felt the burning, red-eyed gaze land on him. She’d never hurt him before, not even when she was like this, but it was still hard to remember that when she was so upset. But he knew he was better at catching and keeping a scent than her, so he pressed forward until he was standing right beneath her massive, white-furred jaws, whining and shoving at her until she paid attention to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She growled softly, and he spun around, following the scent. Her round ears twitched, and she lunged forward, almost trampling him in her haste to begin as she understood what he wanted her to do.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dogmeat would make sure they found Red-coat two-leg. That was all he had to do. Once he was found, White-hair would take care of the rest. He just had to stay out of the way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Everything was a blur of anger and terror and blood rushing in her ears. She couldn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>think, </span>
  </em>
  <span>couldn’t focus, couldn't even begin to formulate a plan. The Beast had erupted within her with the force of a volcano, forcing her body to change painfully quickly, and with the change rational thought had fled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her form practically </span>
  <em>
    <span>sung </span>
  </em>
  <span>with power now, her limbs stretching to their utmost as she bounded across the hard-packed earth, following her furry companion. Her claws flexed into the dirt, longing to rip, to tear, to take back what was </span>
  <em>
    <span>hers.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Kila snarled angrily. There was no room for distraction. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The two of them ran across the Commonwealth, one a mountain of white fur, the other a small brown speck, united in purpose.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hancock swallowed nervously. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Something </span>
  </em>
  <span>was tearing through the upper levels of this place, and it was not happy. Gunfire rang out amid the eerie whooping howls, raiders screaming in pain and anger. God, he hoped that whatever it was, it didn’t quite make it down here. Fucked up that he was hoping the raiders </span>
  <em>
    <span>won.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>After several tense minutes, the gunfire and screams stopped. The other noises did not. They got closer, and soon Hancock could hear snuffling and growling. Ah, fuck. It sounded big. Was he seriously going to die in some fucked up loud deathclaw’s mouth?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The double doors of the large, bare room creaked as the thing outside slammed into them repeatedly. A sweat was breaking out on Hancock’s forehead. Okay, so sue him, it was a metaphorical sweat. Ghouls didn’t sweat much. But still, if he could sweat like he used to he’d be swimming in it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wait. Was that...barking from outside? Under the sounds of metal shrieking in agony and bestial howls, there was definitely a dog barking. And not just any dog. It was goddam </span>
  <em>
    <span>Dogmeat. </span>
  </em>
  <span>What the fuck was he doing here? Surely he wasn’t going to try to take on this thing alone? And where was Kila?</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>pls give feedback! I'm really conflicted on whether I should make this a romantic fic with with Hancock/Sole, or maybe Hancock/Sole/Nick Valentine, or a gen fic! So opinions would be appreciated :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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